Our Children's Children

7

Sandburg, Secretary of Defense, and. Williams, Secretary of State, sat on a davenport in front of the President's desk. Reilly Douglas, Attorney General, was in a chair at its corner. They nodded to Wilson when he came into the room.

"Steve," said the President, "I know that what you have must be important." It was just short of a rebuke.

"I think so, Mr. President," said Wilson. "Molly Kimball is bringing in one of the refugees who says he is a spokesman for at least the Virginia group. I thought you might want to see him, sir."

"Sit down, Steve," said the President. "What do you know about this man? Is he really a spokesman? An accredited spokesman?"

"I don't know," said Wilson. "I would suppose he might have some credentials."

"In any case," said the Secretary of State, "we should listen to what he has to say. God knows, no one else has been able to tell us anything."

Wilson took a chair next to the Attorney General and settled into it.

"The man sent a message ahead," he said. "He thought we should know as soon as possible. He suggested an artillery piece, firing high explosive rounds, be placed in front of every door or time tunnel or whatever the people are coming out of."

"There is some danger, then?" asked the Secretary of Defense.

Wilson shook his head. "I don't know. He apparently was not specific. Only if anything happened at any tunnel we should fire an explosive charge directly into it. Even if there were people in it. To disregard the people and fire. He said it would collapse the tunnel."

"What could happen?" asked Sandburg.

"Tom Manning passed on the word from Molly. Quoted the spokesman as saying we would know. I got the impression it was precautionary only. He'll be here in a few minutes. He could tell us."

"What do you think?" the President asked the others. "Should we see this man?"

"I think we have to," said Williams. "It's not a matter of protocol, because in the situation as it stands we have no idea what protocol might be. Even if he isn't what he says he is, he can give us information, and so far we have none at all. It isn't as if we were accepting him as an ambassador or official representative of those people out there. We could use our judgment as to how much of his story we'd accept."

Sandburg nodded gravely. "I think we should have him in."

"I don't like the idea of a press association bringing him in," said the Attorney General. "They'd not be particularly disinterested parties. There would be a tendency to palm their own man off on us."

"I know Tom Manning," said Wilson. "Molly, too, for that matter. They won't trade on it. Maybe they would have if he had talked to Molly, but he wouldn't talk to anyone. The President, he said, was the only man he'd talk with."

"The act of a public-spirited citizen," said the Attorney General.

"If you're talking about Manning and Molly," said Wilson, "yes, I think so. Your opinion may differ from mine."

"After all," said the Secretary of State, "we'd not be seeing him in any official capacity unless we made it so. We'd not be bound by anything we say."

"And," said the Secretary of Defense, "I want to hear more about blowing up those tunnels. I don't mind telling you they have bothered me. I suppose it is all right so long as only people are coming out of them. But what would we do if something else started coming through?"

"Like what?" asked Douglas.

"I don't know," said Sandburg.

"How deeply, Reilly, does your objection go?" the President asked the Attorney General.

"Not deeply," said Douglas. "Just a lawyer's reaction against irregularity."

"Then I think," said the President, "that we should see him." He looked at Wilson. "Do you know, has he got a name?"

"Maynard Gale," said Wilson. "He has his daughter with him. Her name is Alice."

The President nodded. "You men have the time to sit in on this?"

They nodded.

"Steve," said the President. "You as well. He's your baby."